The invertebrate species (meaning animal species without a backbone) that form the prey base for an ecosystem. Two important forage invertebrates include krill and market squid.

Map of Regions

A map showing the locations of spring season net samples by CalCOFI for use in analyses of abundance and trends in pelagic resources. Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary region (red) includes CalCOFI stations inside and adjacent to CINMS; and Southern California Shelf (yellow) includes all CalCOFI stations over the shelf. Figure credit: A. Thompson/NOAA, Ben Best/EcoQuants.

Market Squid

CalCOFI Monitoring Program

CalCOFI data

A figure showing the average abundance of market squid collected around the Northern Channel Islands (top) and the Southern California Shelf (bottom) from 1997 to 2015. Data source: CalCOFI; Figure credit: A. Thompson/NOAA.

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Mean abundance of market squid (Doryteuthis opalescens) collected in net samples during CalCOFI cruises at only sites in the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary region (top) and all sites over the Southern California Shelf (bottom) from 1997 to 2015 (sampling locations shown in Figure App.F12.17). Symbol at upper right indicates whether data over the last five years (green shaded areas) had a positive trend ( ), a negative trend (), or no trend (↔). Symbol at lower right indicates whether the mean over the past five years was greater than (+), less than (-), or within 1 standard deviation (●) of the mean of the full time series. For more information, consult Figure App.F.12.20.squid in the CINMS 2016 Condition Report.

Krill

CINMS Region

Data not available (yet)

SoCal Shelf Region

Data not available (yet)